He likes me not
by WarioMan3K
Summary: An unfamiliar face is in town and 9-Volt's hanging out with her, leaving Kat and Ana with a misconception that he doesn't like them anymore. But they seem to forget that you can't always judge a classmate from school by his or her appearance alone.


A friend of mine on DeviantART requested this short fic, and therefore I felt that since I posted it there, I'd do the same here. The character for this story, Sophia, was his idea, so I hereby give credit to him. Enjoy!

**DISCLAIMER: WarioWare Inc. and Kid Icarus are properties of Nintendo; Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft (yes, I know Konami owns it now as of March 2012, but still); Wreck-It Ralph is owned by Disney; Contra is a property of Konami; and Pac-Man belongs to Namco. While I own my following OCs in this story - Phoebe, Blaze Bomber, and Siren Bomber - a few others belong to my friends. As such, Keyla and Patricia are owned by fellow DA user JapanAnimeGirl; LovelyTekki (aka. Princesstekki, on DA) owns Princess Cherry.**

* * *

-He likes me not-

Diamond City, a peaceful place in the United States where everything was back to normal since the day the heroic Contras - co-led by me, Aaron, and Ami - saved Earth from the evil forces of Red Falcon. Purple Basilisk and his five goons, the Chaotic Bombers, were banished to the underworld from which he had no other choice but to simply run things his way.

Today, Kat and Ana had just left school to find 9-Volt and Phoebe at Diamond Elementary, declaring it was time for a gaming session in _Sugar Rush_ at Blaze Bomber's Diamond Arcade World...but instead, they saw him hanging out with a different girl rather than his best friend from Video Game Dream. This girl, also slightly taller than him like Phoebe is, only about his age, had brown hair with a headband on top. She wore a yellow Pac-Man T-shirt, beige shorts, and a pair of sneakers, which of course led 9-Volt to believe that this girl must be into retro games too, let alone _Pac-Man_. The moment they stepped outside the front door, Kat and Ana could overhear the girl's name being Sophia.

"Isn't Phoebe supposed to be with him like she usually is after school?" wondered Ana.

"Yeah, but..." Kat was at a loss for words momentarily. "What if this Sophia person isn't what she seems to be? What if 9-Volt likes her and not us...or worse..."

Then the kindergartners gasped and panicked at once, "What if she's Siren Bomber in disguise?!"

"Ana, we need to do something quick before bad stuff happens! I think she's trying a new tactic to make our Contra buddies submit to her rule by disguising herself as an elementary school girl! She must want us to think she's Sophia and that 9-Volt likes her instead of us!"

In a panic, the girls ran off to Ashley's mansion as a first stop to tell its occupants what they just saw at Diamond Elementary, though not before Ana started screaming her head off with distraught. "SHE'S TRICKING 9-VOLT INTO NOT LIKING US ANYMORE!"

"Whoa, calm down, girls," Ashley said nonchalantly.

"Calm down?! CALM DOWN?!" Ana began bawling in tears so hard it got a little difficult for Ashley to understand what she was saying. "Our Cont-our Contra friends - away right now, and-and-and now Siren's here to - here to kill us - starting with-"

Ashley gave her a hard slap to the face, stopping her screaming. "Ana, get a grip, will you?! What exactly did you hear?"

"I'm trying to tell you...9-Volt doesn't like us anymore! That, and there's this girl who says her name's Sophia, and we didn't see Phoebe at the time..."

The witch-in-training sighed painfully. "Look, people meet new folks all the time, but whatever it is you thought you heard, _get over yourselves_. Pit and Phosphora already blew up Siren Bomber while helping the Contras defeat the Red Falcon Empire, so there's nothing to worry about."

"But what if she found the way back...?" Kat asked with a worried tone.

Ashley slapped herself in the forehead, and reluctantly repeated herself in a slowed down tone of voice. "It's over, kids. The evil Bomber-girl is dead. We good guys won. Get the picture?"

* * *

"Well, Ash's not much help..."

"What are we gonna do, Kat?"

The elder twin thought of something. "I once saw it in a cartoon. To get our pal back, we prank the bad girl so hard she won't think of coming near him again..."

And so, the ninja twins ran off to grab some stuff from Diamond Dojo, whilst keeping their predicament a secret from their sensei, and left for Pearl Square, believing it to be one of 9-Volt's favorite hangouts. There they saw two kids on a picnic blanket with a pink bouncy ball about as big as a beach ball, sure to be 9-Volt and Sophia from the back. When Kat went in to grab 9-Volt by the shoulders to face her, she found that he was..._a plush toy?!_

The girl at about 5 years old rather than 9, who was sitting on the blanket, turned over and growled at Kat and Ana like a tiger. Her frilly dress was yellow like Sophia's T-shirt, but it did not have a Pac-Man design embedded up front. Perhaps the twins found the wrong pair too little, too late. "9-VOLT DOLLY MIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!"

She flailed her arms and pounded Kat and Ana, sending them screaming in agony. "OW! AAAAAHH!" Then the angry kindergartner smacked their faces with her ball a few times like she was playing dodgeball. As soon as they were down, she grabbed them by their ponytails, swung them around, and threw them out of the park so hard they crash-landed elsewhere in the city like meteors.

"9-VOLT DOLLY MINE!" The child paused for a moment to let her anger drain away, and turned her attention back to her 9-Volt plushie. "There, there, wittwe 9-Vowt. I wuv you." She kissed it a few times and hugged it afterwards. "It's okay...shhh, Mommy's here."

* * *

"Ouch...I guess it's safe to say that girl's not Sophia. At all."

"I agree, Ana...and man, our school never had dodgeball class. Alright, next plan: we use our prank item we've been saving for when we have to teach Mr. Wario a lesson about greed." Kat got out a big black bouncy ball from her backpack, but it was no ordinary ball; rather, a _bomb_ with a fuse on top. "Here it is, the Soot Bomb! It's completely harmless, and has this balloon-popping sound when it explodes. We all know Siren Bomber hates getting dirty, so..."

"Its smoke-ish blast can cover a person in soot just like a cartoon bomb would!" The younger twin was the first to step inside the next destination: Diamond Arcade World itself. She and Kat knew 9-Volt and Phoebe liked to hang out with their friends, whether it be playing arcade games or teleporting themselves into Game Central Station. She was careful not to make the same mistake like at Pearl Square, and this time her assumption was correct: 9-Volt _is_ there, with Sophia.

* * *

"Whoops! Got a little carried away with having fun," came 9-Volt's voice.

"It's okay, 9-Volt," Sophia's voice joined. "To have fun playing video games like _Sugar Rush_ or _Silver Strike Bowling_ is a wonderful thing."

"Yep. Let's bowl a couple more strikes and head over to _Fix-It Felix Jr._ and _Pac-Man_!"

"That's the spirit, and since you've been on your best behavior at school, we'll help each other win! Here we go!"

_It's gotta be them, alright,_ thought Ana. _Hang on, 9-Volt!_

Then she made her move, albeit against Kat's orders to keep quiet and wait for the right moment. "I'LL SAVE YOU, 9-VOLT! I'M COMING-WhoooOOAA!" She accidentally tripped over and dropped her lit Soot Bomb. It came rolling towards 9-Volt and Sophia, sending Kat and Ana into a panic, for they didn't want to cover their friend in soot. They rushed for the kid-friendly toon bomb to put out its fuse, but they were a second late as it exploded, covering all four kids in soot with a smoke-like blast. Though 9-Volt and Sophia had no idea what was going on, they were lucky the Soot Bomb was more of a prank toy than an explosive, disguised as a bouncy ball.

Suddenly, a pre-teen girl's voice could be heard, whom the kids recognized all too well as Penny Crygor's. She was usually at Crygor Labs whenever Blaze Bomber was running the place, but since he was out with his fellow Contras at the moment, she took over for him. "What's all the commotion? You know you're not supposed to run around and-GOOD LORD! Why are you all covered in soot?"

"Don't you understand, Penny?!" cried a frantic Kat. "Siren Bomber's here, in disguise as a young school girl!"

"What are you talking about?" asked a confused 9-Volt. "She's stuck in the underworld with her fellow goons, remember?"

"9-Volt, don't tell me you're completely swept away by this Sophia girl!" Ana threw herself to her knees and bawled her eyes out. "Now we'll never see you again!"

The young boy, who had no clue what Kat and Ana were talking about as though he knew the truth about Sophia, opened up his backpack and got out the fruit and cloud whistles, followed by a luck charm shaped like Dracula's head and a crystal ball with a lightning bolt decoration inside. Cherry and Phosphora were the first to appear, followed by Pit (who apparently was with the latter girl when 9-Volt called), then Keyla the Vampire/Bowling Princess, and finally, Patricia the Mistress of Bouncing Balls.

"Yes, you called?" chirped Phosphora.

"Looks like the gang's all here!" added Pit. "By that, I mean us, but still."

"Hi, everyone!" cheered Keyla. "Who's that girl, 9-Volt?"

"Fellas, I'd like you to meet one of my classmates from Diamond Elementary. Her name's Sophia."

Kat and Ana were the ones confused now. "HUH?"

Sophia waved back at 9-Volt's guardian angels. "Nice to meet you guys! 9-Volt told me so much about you while I was helping him with his homework."

"Homework? But that's..."

"He had a lot to do," explained Sophia, "so he called his mom and told her he wanted to stay in school for a bit longer. She told him that's fine as long as I was able to help him with his homework. I think you got a little worked up for nothing, because you see, I really am Sophia."

9-Volt added his two cents, "What she's saying is, she's a normal person like the rest of us, and Phoebe too."

"You mean she's...NOT Siren Bomber at all?" questioned Kat.

"Maybe Ashley was right..." admitted Ana.

"Here, how about this?" Penny got out her Lens of Truth. "We'll look through it together and prove to you that Siren Bomber is nowhere near any of us." She activated its magic, scanned Sophia, and found no abnormal signs. "See? She's perfectly human."

"Besides," said Patricia, "you know 9-Volt likes all of his female friends equally, including us guardian angels, and you two as well. Both his mom and big sister figure raised him right and taught him to always respect the opposite sex just the same as the guys, but steer clear of the bad apples too."

_Bad apples like Viridi the Brat,_ thought Cherry.

"And to always help his guardian angels from time to time as they're protecting him from harm," reminded Phosphora, "to make things a lot easier and more fun for everyone." She knelt down momentarily to kiss 9-Volt's cheek. "I'm proud of you for doing the right thing by letting Sophia help you finish your homework."

"Mm-hmm, and we packed each other's stuff before we left, just like Phoebe and I always do whenever school's over."

Finally, it was Cherry's turn to tell Kat and Ana the moral of the story. "You always gotta remember to never judge a girl you don't know well that 9-Volt hangs out with. When 9-Volt and Phoebe went to my Fruit Kingdom with Pit and Phosphora to meet me, we got to know each other so as to not misinterpret each other."

"And one time," added Keyla, "when Patricia and I talked about our friendships with 9-Volt, I was a bit jealous of her because she has electric powers and I have vampire abilities, but she wasn't, because she learned an important lesson that jealousy is a vile beast. Another thing to keep in mind is to gain each other's trust. Try hanging out with 9-Volt and his new friend, like Sophia here, and get to know her, that way you won't need to worry about his safety."

"Does this mean 9-Volt's back...with all of us?"

"Of course he is, Ana," Pit answered with a reassuring smile. "Like Sophia said just now, you got worked up for nothing."

"If that's the case...then where _did_ Phoebe go?" wondered Kat.

9-Volt explained, "She had to warp over to her old home in Video Game Dream after school, to help her king dad deal with a lot of people who keep coming in to his castle to complain about that Bomberman clone released a while back on the Wii U called _Bombing Bastards_."

"But, she also got to know me enough to trust me with the task of looking after him for a while," summarized Sophia. "As much as I don't like bragging, I'm the most popular girl to all the boys in school, therefore granting me the special ability to talk any bullies - boy or girl - out of picking on 9-Volt and/or Phoebe by teaching them why it's wrong to do all sorts of bad things to other people. If they don't like it, too bad, because they know they'd never think about hurting a popular girl like myself. But aside from all that, I'm also a smart person, and great at video games, tennis, volleyball, and bowling. Like I said, not to brag or anything. Now you know who I am."

"And knowing is half the battle," Kat and Ana blurted simultaneously, before giving 9-Volt and Sophia a group hug. And everybody lived happily ever after, enjoying some quality time together by playing _Pac-Man Battle Royale_, prior to paying a visit to Wreck-It Ralph and friends in the digital realm.

THE END

(Ending Credits)  
Kat - GREY DELISLE  
Ana - TARA STRONG  
9-Volt - TARA STRONG  
Sophia - STEFANIE SCOTT  
Pit - ANTONY DEL RIO  
Phosphora - KARI WAHLGREN  
Keyla - TRACEY HOYT  
Patricia - AMY BIRNBAUM  
Cherry - ASHLEIGH BALL  
Ashley - CHRISTINA PEYSER  
Penny Crygor - JANICE KAWAYE  
Little girl - SANDY FOX

[End Credits]


End file.
